


This Is Who I Am

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Read My Lips [40]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 12:09:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6518767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: <i>Any, any, War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead. (The Things They Carried)</i>.</p><p>Anne Teldy and her team are assigned to clean out Jack O'Neill's garage after his death and stumble across a video tape that carries his philosophy of war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is Who I Am

It was Rodney who found the tape. The entire SGC was in crisis, in mourning with the sudden passing of General Jack O'Neill, just on the heels of General George Hammond. Compared to George, Jack was young, healthy, strong. He was the kind of intergalactic hero who kids looked up to. He'd died like a hero, too, defending Earth against one last gasp from Ba'al.  
  
Carter, Mitchell, Jackson, and Vala had been unable to go near the closed-up house where O'Neill had left half of his life before he shipped out to Washington, and somehow it had fallen to Anne, as the military commander of Atlantis's flagship team, and people of her choosing to clean out the house.  
  
So there they were, in O'Neill's dusty garage, John, Anne, Rodney, and Lorne, sorting through boxes. O'Neill had no next of kin, so they were trying to decide which of his possessions to donate and which of his possessions would be saved as artifacts for the Stargate Memorial Museum the IOA was planning on making, using memorabilia from anyone who'd served and fallen (or served and survived).  
  
"Who's Charlie?" Rodney asked, lifting a tape. It was in the middle of a stack of tapes of recorded hockey games. O'Neill had liked hockey a lot.  
  
Lorne said, "O'Neill's son."  
  
Anne blinked. "O'Neill had a son?"  
  
"He was married, once," Lorne said.  
  
John frowned and signed. "How do you know that?"  
  
"Shouldn't his son be getting all of this stuff, then?" Rodney asked.  
  
"His son died," Lorne said, "right before they opened the Stargate for the first time."  
  
That hadn't been on any press briefings of the man that Anne had ever seen.  
  
"There's a VCR player in the house," Rodney said. "If it's important, they might want it for the museum."  
  
"I doubt it's important to the museum if it came from before the Stargate program," John began, but then Rodney was headed into the house, and everyone else followed, because this was Jack O'Neill, a hero, a legend, and there was so much no one knew about him.  
  
Anne knew he joked about trees on planets he visited, but not that he'd ever had a wife and family.  
  
They knelt in front of the television and Rodney popped the tape into the VCR. There was an initial burst of static, and then an empty chair, and then –  
  
Anne's breath hitched.  
  
The man sitting in the chair in front of the camera was Jonathan McNeil, maybe a few years older, with a distinctly military haircut, wearing a uniform and dog tags.  
  
" _Hey, Charlie_ ," he said, and he _sounded_ just like McNeil. " _I hope you never have to see this, buddy. I hope that I'm coming home to you and your mother after this mission. And I hope you never have to make one of these. Here's the thing, son: War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead. That's the final point, Charlie. War makes you dead. I have to do this because this is who I am, but this isn't who you have to be. Be something better. Be the greatest baseball player or hockey player in the world. Be something that makes people smile. And be good for your mom, because I know some days I'm not. Love you, Charlie."_  
  
And then O'Neill was out of the chair and the tape ended.  
  
Anne cast a sidelong glance at Lorne, who'd been friends with McNeil since day one, spent time at the shooting range with him, sparred with him, let him join in on morning runs and boxing lessons with John.  
  
There had been rumors, but there were regs, and -  
  
"We should give that to Jonathan," Lorne said quietly, and Anne nodded.  
  
"All right. Let's go finish packing."  
  
So they did. No one said anything further about the tape, and when the IOA asked if they'd found anything valuable, John suggested offering up O'Neill's Simpsons collection to the Archive on Atlantis so Pegasus natives and other aliens could learn about Earth culture.  
  
Anne never could quite look at McNeil the same again, and the first time she saw him standing a little too close to Lorne, she turned around and walked away before either of them noticed her.


End file.
